Gifford Fire grows out of control? Planes, 1000 firefighters put to douse raging blaze in California
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Business Standard
an hour ago
- Business Standard
Massive California wildfire grows, becomes state's largest in 2025
Rising temperatures on Wednesday posed new challenges for firefighters who have made incremental progress against a massive wildfire in central California that has injured four people as it has become the biggest blaze in the state so far this year. More than 870 remote homes and other structures at the northern edge of Los Padres National Forest are threatened by the Gifford Fire, which grew only slightly overnight after burning out of control for days. The fire has scorched at least 339 square kilometres of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, with just 9 per cent containment. It surpassed the 326-square-kilometer Madre Fire, which erupted last month in southeastern San Luis Obispo County, as the state's largest fire of 2025. Crews working in steep, inaccessible terrain will be dealing with temperatures in the mid-90s (35 Celsius) on Wednesday and above 100 (38 Celsius) on Thursday, said Capt. Scott Safechuck with the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. We have hot weather, and we have low relative humidity, Safechuck said Wednesday. So we expect extreme fire behaviour. Luckily, winds are expected to remain relatively calm, he said. Wildfire risk will be elevated through the weekend across much of inland California as the heat wave intensifies. The southern part of the state has seen very little rain, drying out vegetation and making it ripe to burn, the National Weather Service for Los Angeles warned in a statement. Triple-digit temperatures (around 38 Celsius) are forecast for the Sacramento Valley. More than 2,200 personnel are battling the Gifford Fire, which grew out of at least four smaller fires that erupted Friday along State Route 166, forcing closures in both directions east of Santa Maria, a city of about 110,000 people. The causes of the fires are under investigation. Flames are racing through a vast, mostly unpopulated region that includes forestland, ranches, large canyon properties and agricultural parcels growing wine grapes and strawberries. The weather service warned of health risks from spreading smoke that could affect much of southwest California. Officials reported four injuries, including a firefighter who was treated for dehydration. Over the weekend, a motorist was hospitalised with burn injuries after getting out of his vehicle and being overrun by flames. And two contract employees assisting firefighters were also hurt when their all-terrain vehicle overturned.
The Journal
3 hours ago
- The Journal
A wildfire is burning in California even larger than the mega fires that scorched LA in January
RISING TEMPERATURES ARE posing new challenges for firefighters who have made incremental progress against a massive wildfire in central California which has become the biggest blaze in the state so far this year. More than 870 remote homes and other structures at the northern edge of Los Padres National Forest are threatened by the Gifford Fire, which grew overnight after burning out of control for days. The fire has scorched at least 339 square kilometres of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, with only 9% of it contained. It has scorched more land than the extensives fires that caused chaos in Los Angeles and San Diego in January, when around 230 square kilometres of land was burned. Around 200,000 people had to evacuate during those fires, with 30 people killed and 18,000 homes and structures destroyed. Crews are working in steep, inaccessible terrain to fight the latest wildfire. Temperatures were around 35 degrees Celsius today and are anticipated to rise to above 38 degrees tomorrow, said Captain Scott Safechuck with Santa Barbara County Fire Department. 'We have hot weather, and we have low relative humidity,' he said. 'So we expect extreme fire behaviour.' He said that winds are fortunately expected to remain relatively calm. However, wildfire risk will be elevated through the weekend across much of inland California as the heatwave intensifies. Advertisement Smoke from the Gifford Fire fills the sky over Los Padres National Forest PA PA The southern part of the state has seen very little rain, drying out vegetation and making it 'ripe to burn', the National Weather Service for Los Angeles warned in a statement. Temperatures around 38 degrees are forecast for the Sacramento Valley. More than 2,200 personnel are battling the Gifford Fire, which grew out of at least four smaller fires that erupted on Friday along State Route 166, forcing closures in both directions east of Santa Maria, a city of about 110,000 people. The causes of the fires are under investigation. Flames are racing through a vast, mostly unpopulated region that includes forests, ranches, large canyon properties and agricultural parcels growing wine grapes and strawberries. The weather service warned of health risks from spreading smoke that could affect much of south-west California. Officials reported four injuries, including a firefighter who was treated for dehydration. Over the weekend, a motorist was treated in hospital for burn injuries after getting out of his vehicle and being overrun by flames, and two contract employees assisting firefighters were hurt when their all-terrain vehicle overturned. Additional reporting by Lauren Boland
The Star
3 hours ago
- The Star
Researchers to revive disaster-tracking tool
Extreme weather: A firefighter battles the Gifford Fire in brush-covered hillsides west of New Cuyama, California. Before its demise, NOAA tracked the growing number of storms, droughts and wildfires that cause at least US$1bil in damage. — Reuters NEW YORK: A climate nonprofit is planning to revive a key federal database tracking billion-dollar weather disasters that the Trump administration formally stopped updating in May. The database, which was produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is set to return this fall as a product of Climate Central. The organisation has hired Adam Smith, the former NOAA climatologist who led the disaster tracker for more than a decade, to continue tallying the growing number of storms, droughts and wildfires that cause at least US$1bil in damage. In an interview with Bloomberg Green, Smith said he left NOAA voluntarily in April after facing pressure to stop work on the database. The Trump administration has waged a broad assault on climate science in recent months, attacking mainstream findings, disabling the federal website and proposing to eliminate most of NOAA's research division. The billion-dollar disaster tool, which has been retired but is still publicly accessible online, captured the financial toll wrought by increasingly intense weather events. Damage estimates compiled by Smith and his team were a key element of the most recent National Climate Assessment. They've also been used by the insurance and re-insurance sectors to highlight the risk weather hazards pose across the United States. Rather than just a static dataset or periodic report, like those published by insurance businesses, the NOAA tool provided an interactive way to parse disaster losses by state, year and weather threat, Smith said. 'You could just slice and dice the data in different ways, depending on what question you're trying to answer,' Smith said in an interview. 'I've had many people try to ask me for guidance about how to recreate this, and I'm telling all these people, 'Hey, we're doing it'.' NOAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Smith's NOAA team found that the United States had experienced an annual average of nine extreme weather events that inflicted at least US$1bil in damage since 1980, when the analysis began. But that number has spiked in recent years as development expands in disaster-prone regions. In 2023, the United States experienced a record US$28bil disasters, including a widespread drought that inflicted US$14.8bil in damages, and the deadly Maui wildfires. There were 27 such incidents in 2024. Research published by the federal government found that climate change-fuelled extreme weather is already causing US$150bil in losses a year in the United States, and the risks are likely to rise as the planet warms. Looking ahead, Smith said he hopes to compile and analyse data on disasters with far smaller price tags down to the US$100mil threshold. — Bloomberg
